As Telstra's Network Applications and Services division expands into Asia, the company is looking to outsource 170 Australian jobs to an Indian provider to allow for cost competitiveness and better scalability.

The NAS division currently employs around 2,700 people in Australia, but David Burns, the head of the NAS division in Telstra, said that to be able to grow NAS further, Telstra is looking to outsource 170 back-end positions to an as-yet-undetermined outsourcer based in India.

"This is about growth, this is about supporting our clients as they move offshore and supporting our international clients in that market," he told journalists today.

"We need to be able to scale quickly, we need to be able to meet the demand, we need to be able to support our customers as they move into the South-East Asia region, and we need to be competitive."

The jobs affected would come out of all the major capital cities in Australia, but would not affect any regional Telstra offices.

The company has begun consultations with employees, and Burns said that no final decision has been made on whether the jobs will go. He would not confirm whether the decision had been made based on the cost difference for the roles between Australia and India.

If Telstra decides to proceed with the outsourcing, it will commence in October, and take between six months and one year to complete. He said that the Indian outsourcer would start with 170 employees, but he could not state whether this would increase over time.

"We're expecting to move those 170 roles across, what that becomes in the future based on growth and opportunities, I don't have information to share with you."

Burns said that today's announcement is separate from the May announcement of a massive operations restructure in Telstra that is believed to affect approximately half of the over 30,000 employees of the telecommunications giant.